Meet an ivory trafficker's 'worst nightmare'

LONDON - A groundbreaking technique looks set to turn man's best friend into a trafficker's worst nightmare. It will allow dogs to sniff out ivory, rhino horn and other illegal wildlife products hidden in large shipping containers, using a tiny sample of air.

The method is being trialled at Kenya's Mombasa port - said to be Africa's most active hub for ivory trafficking.

According to one report, more than 18,000kg of ivory was seized at the port between 2009 and 2014.

To produce that much ivory, the report suggests more than 2,400 elephants may have died - and that is only the ivory they found. But conservationist Drew McVey is hopeful that statistics like that could soon be a thing of the past.

"This technique could be a game-changer, reducing the number of endangered animal parts finding their way into overseas markets like south-east Asia," he said.

The scheme is run jointly by the WWF global conservation group, the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic and the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). It will also allow the dogs to check more of the roughly 2,000 shipping containers which pass through Mombasa port each day.

Previously, they had to go container by container, not easy under the glare of the east African sun.

While time consuming, this method had led to 26 successful seizures in just six months, giving authorities crucial information about the criminal networks which make millions each year from the illegal trade.